NEWS: Danny Baker @ Tyne Theatre & Opera House

The legendary broadcaster comes to Newcastle

By Lee Fisher
on Wednesday, April 19th, 2017

It’s fair to say that writer, broadcaster, football pundit and washing powder salesman Danny Baker is quite a divisive figure: for everyone who finds his ebullient, quick-witted, self-aggrandising hokum charming and hysterical, there’s someone who finds him arrogant, irksome and unbearably Pollyannaish. As a former London resident, I started off very much in the latter camp, but after lengthy exposure to his cruelly-axed BBC London show, realised that his ability to spin radio gold from the barest of threads was astonishing (nobody mention Stockholm Syndrome).

Having overcome the aforementioned axing of his afternoon show and a bout of cancer, he’s since written two volumes of autobiography (serialised on TV as Cradle To The Grave) and has now decided to add the stage to his insanely varied CV. Baker’s lengthy yet vague description of what he plans suggests the show will have the same freewheeling quality as his radio shows: “…I will of course arrive in front of you going off like a Cacophonous Catherine Wheel of Chat, armed with hundreds of tall tales to tell…”. In any case, it’s hard to see how this new venture won’t see Baker, as he’s wont to exclaim, “wearing his hat on the side of his head” as usual.